What is the difference?
If you skip right to this section, we won’t
blame you. Releasing a product that bears the same name with your high-end
handset, whatever the suffix, of course, will ensure high expectations - for
better or worse. Even though there are reasons not to compare the Galaxy S III
mini with its larger sibling, many of you are here to argue, and we do not want
to disappoint.
“Unbox”
a Samsung Galaxy S3 mini.
We will start with some external
differences before moving on to some more important features inside that
whether the mini versions can be inherited. At first, start with the top of
both devices, the mini one had slightly rounded appearance. Of course, this is
a side effect of its narrower shape, which means its round shoulder met more
quickly, leaving less space between their flat. Below this, you will notice
that sensors and the camera had moved from the right on the original Galaxy S
III to the left this time. Beneath these, Samsung's logo is much bigger as well
as the total distance from the screen to the top of the device, make the
beveled surface higher at the outermost part of the new phone. It also makes
the device slightly elongated when placed next to each other. It seems that
Samsung also think smaller hands want bigger input options, as the home button is
significantly larger on the mini than on the standard Galaxy S III. The power
button on the top right is also higher and squarer than on the original model,
which is more symmetrical.
Around the back, the only notably different
is the LED flash layout, currently below the camera lens. Speaker holes are
located on the left of the camera instead of the right, as it did the first
time. While not easy to point it out as a physical feature immediately, the
original Galaxy S III has notification lights - seems to have been lost during
the shrinking process. We think it is a great pity. That was aesthetic
differences, now we will check whether there is any difference inside. (Yes,
there is quite a lot).
The
LED flash layout is currently below the camera lens
Let’s start with the top again, the screen.
We do not want to see the size of the screen as a bad specification when the
whole purpose is to design a smaller phone. For some people, the 4.8 inch of
the original version will be inclined a bit to phablet segment, so that the
idea of a 4inch version which was easier to handle can attract more
customers. However, unfortunately this does not show a HD screen with rich
pixels, due to the smaller size, it represents a lower resolution: 800x480.
Obviously this is a poor specification, and made it equal with the Desire X of
HTC, which can be competitive in many ways (the same clock speed, camera
resolution, etc.). The PenTile matrix will not win many fans. Meanwhile, on the
4.8 inch screen of Galaxy S III, resolution 1,280x720 means 305 pixel per inch.
Falling to WVGA and lost 0.8 inch witnessed PPI reduced to 233, it's not the
worst thing we've ever seen, but it makes a significant difference. You will
not need to look closely to identify the pixels with the naked eye, or light
text on a black background to find a broken edge pixel which is visible, but
with the large Galaxy S III, you have to bring the screen much closer to find
details like that.
A next difference - and possibly the most
important one - is what lay inside. While quad-core Exynos processor of Samsung
usually made our stern face relax, they felt that power (or even Snapdragon S4
LTE) is simply too much for a phone of this level, by choosing a more modest
processor NovaThor U8500 (1 Ghz) manufactured by ST-Ericsson (the same
processor in the Galaxy Beam). Although its performance is not bad, if you are
hoping this mini will be a pocket rocket art, it won’t.
Samsung
S3 and Samsung S3 mini
Ok, so they have diminished the processor a
bit. Pretty fair, you said - it will certainly make up for another field,
right? If so, then it is not in the camera field. MP has been reduced from 8
to 5 on the main camera, and the front-facing camera has been decreased from
1.9MP to VGA resolution. The last one which was diminished is battery capacity
- 1500mAh, down from 2100mAh. Of course, this is an awaited change and as we
will discover later - it is not the change you should be concerned.
Somewhat, these poor specifications may be
the center of many discussions related to the Galaxy S III mini. It can do
almost anything else from now on, and we imagine it will not be very important
to some people. Beside teleportation feature, a holographic creation or 5G
support, the fact is that many people read the article above and almost leave
the phone immediately. Of course, they have the rights to do so, and if you are
looking for a Samsung’s masterpiece – which was just smaller - then we will not
blame you. However, if you drill more, please continue reading to understand it
better, and maybe eventually you would not have a pessimistic view about this
little phone.
